1. In 1357, Chaucer was sent by his family to live in the house of a countess. He stayed in and around the court until he died some thirty-three years later
  2. Was Chaucer murdered? Terry Jones recently suggested that he had been. It’s an interesting theory (and perhaps even a probable one), but at this point most scholars seem to consider it just a rumor.
  3. Think you’ve held a lot of jobs? Chaucer worked as a page, a soldier, an esquire, a diplomat, a customs controller, justice of the peace, member of Parliament, Clerk of the Works of Westminster, Commissioner of Walls and Ditches, and Deputy Forester of the Royal Forest.
  4. Besides The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer is also known for “The Book of the Duchess,” “Troilus and Criseyde,” “The Legend of Good Women,” and numerous other short and long poems.
  5. His death sparked a tradition: Chaucer was the first poet to be buried in Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey (not even Shakespeare could claim that—he has a monument there but was buried elsewhere).

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known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey. While he achieved fame during his lifetime as an author, philosopher, alchemist and astronomer, composing a scientific treatise on the astrolabe for his ten year-old son Lewis, Chaucer also maintained an active career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier and diplomat.

he was born in 1342-1400